Right Story, Wrong Story: How to Have Fearless Conversations in Hell

Continuing the work of the award-winning Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta casts an Indigenous lens on contemporary society, challenging us to face conflict and embrace conversation to find our way onto the right track.

With Right Story, Wrong Story, Apalech Clan member Tyson Yunkaporta, from far north Queensland, tackles the divisions that prevent us from talking to one another. Yunkaporta invites us to confront life’s biggest questions and arms us with the tools we need to really listen, and to open our minds to change based upon our connections with others. He makes this point through discussions with a diverse range of people across social and political divides including:

• liberal economists
• memorization experts
• Frisian ecologists
• and Elders who are wood carvers, mathematicians, and storytellers.

Building upon the Indigenous tradition of “yarning” to weave our individual narratives into the great narrative that includes us all across any and all differences, Yunkaporta argues that story is at the heart of everything. But what is right or wrong story?

“Sand Talk unpacks for us something originally genius about Indigenous thought, which has for too long been dismissed as archaic folk knowledge from old oral cultures of interest only to academics and fetishists. This book shows how vital and alive and essential Indigenous ways of being and thinking are. Yunkaporta is so smart, funny, and accessible. Everyone needs to read this.” - Tommy Orange, bestselling author of There There, on Sand Talk

“An astonishing revelation of ancient Aboriginal wisdom as it applies to science and modern times. It’s one of the best books I ever read, and I’ve been reading books for 80 years. There’s nothing like it. It leaves you gasping. If you care about yourself, the world around you, and where you come from, you’d better read it. You won’t put it down.” - Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs and Growing Old, on Sand Talk

“This is a book of cultural and philosophic intrigue. Read it.” - Bruce Pascoe, author of Dark Emu, on Sand Talk

“An exhilarating meditation on different ways of knowing and being. Sand Talk is playful, profound, and fiercely original.” - Billy Griffiths, author of Deep Time Dreaming, on Sand Talk

"Yunkaporta is innovative, provocative, and pulls no punches." - The Fifth State